Framed

Political Climate

Few things show the intellectual bankruptcy of the GOP today more effectively than Senator James Inhofe's objection to holding a concert just outside the capitol to raise awareness about global warming.

296 days . . .

. . . until the New Hampshire primary.

Could this be it?

It's a mystery why Bush and Gonzales fired the U.S. Attorneys knowing that a major shitstorm would ensue and that the Democratically-controlled Congress would investigate the hell out of it.  But Ted Kennedy has a theory:

Senator Edward M. Kennedy yesterday accused President Bush of using the Department of Justice to further his administration's "right-wing ideology," saying that veteran prosecutors were replaced by political operatives in key states to ensure that "reliable partisans" are in place in time for the 2008 presidential election.

Kennedy noted that the recent rash of firings among US attorneys put new top prosecutors in place in several presidential swing states, including Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Arkansas.

At least two of the eight US attorneys fired by the administration refused to investigate spurious claims of voter fraud that were initiated by Republicans, Kennedy said. Two of the new US attorneys, meanwhile, had documented records of pursuing GOP goals, one as a Justice Department official and the other as a top aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove, he said.

"The administration views our system of justice as merely another arena for furthering its right-wing ideology," Kennedy said in a speech at the National Press Club. "The conclusion is inescapable that the administration has methodically placed reliable partisans in positions where they can influence the outcome of the 2008 election."

To test Kennedy's hypothesis, I looked up the P2004 election results in those states.  The results:

Florida: Bush 52%, Kerry 47%

Iowa: Bush 50%, Kerry 49%

New Mexico: Bush 50%, Kerry 49%

Minnesota: Kerry 51%, Bush 48%

Arkansas: Bush 54%, Kerry 45%

The other two U.S. Attorneys were from Nevada and California, where the results were as follows:

California: Kerry 54%, Bush 45%

Nevada: Bush 51%, Kerry 48%

The national election results were Bush 51%, Kerry 48%.  Only four out of seven of the states that were home to the sacked U.S. Attorneys  had margins as narrow or narrower than the national average.  Kennedy's theory sounds dubious to me.

Outraged

Does Bill Donohue travel around the country looking for things to be outraged about, or does he have a staff to do that for him?  And is he more outraged 1) that Jesus is depicted with chocolate-brown flesh, 2) that chocolate is, in fact, the sculptural medium, or 3) that Jesus has a penis?

Hey Bill, since you're calling for a boycott of the gallery where brown chocolate penis'd Jesus is hanging, maybe you should boycott Tom Waits while you're at it.

Framing De-Escalation

The Conceptual Guerilla has a fine analysis of how the GOP is attempting to frame the funding bill making its way through Congress that sets a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq.  To summarize:

True to form, the Flying Monkeys have kicked into "spin cycle," trying to establish their own frames for interpreting this situation.  Three distinct lines of attack have emerged.  The first has to do with all that "pork" contained in the bill -- like this is something new.
*  *  *
The second line of attack is the claim that "the surge is starting to work."
*  *  *
[And third,] "Congress continues to pursue this bill" knowing the President is going to veto them.

How should the anti-war forces respond? 

Repeat after me out on the message boards.  "If the President vetoes the supplemental spending bill, defunding the war will be his responsibility.  Congress gave him the money, he didn't want it."

To this I would add a cautionary note.  The last time there was a major showdown between Congress and the President over the budget was in late 1995 and early 1996.  President Clinton vetoed the federal budget passed by the Republican-controlled Congress because it made unacceptable cuts in many federal programs.  Since he didn't have the votes to override the veto, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich simply refused to submit a revised budget to a vote, resulting in the partial government shutdown due to a lack of appropriated funding.  Clinton was very successful at blaming Gingrich and the Republicans in Congress for the shutdown, and was re-elected in 1996.  In 1998, the Republicans lost five seats in the House.

Even Karl Rove is not as clever a spinner as the Big Dog was--but there is still risk to the Democrats here.  If the administration is able to successfully push the meme that it was the Democratic Congress that shut down the U.S. military, then woe betide the Dems come 2008.

Conceptual Guerilla is right: this is one framing issue the Democrats must control.

297 days . . .

. . . until the New Hampshire primary.

From TIME magazine:

In our poll, Hillary Clinton loses to John McCain, 42-48%, and to Rudy Giuliani 41-50%. Even though Clinton maintains a 7% edge over Obama among Democratic respondents, Obama fares better in the general election match-ups. It's so close that it's a statistical dead-heat, but Obama still loses: 43-45% to McCain, 44-45% to Giuliani.

It's hard to know exactly why respondents who are generally unhappy towards --and in many cases fed up with -- the GOP might still prefer a Republican for president over a Democrat. Much of it has to do with the individual candidates involved. In Clinton's case, as TIME pollster Mark Shulman points out, "with Hillary the Democratic front-runner, most voters have made up their minds about her, both pro and con. She may have limited upward potential against Republicans. The emerging anti-Hillaries, Obama and Edwards, suffer from low awareness at this point."

This is precisely why, despite many favorable omens, the Democrats cannot afford to be complacent about 2008.  And given the large number of people who say nohow noway would they pull a lever for Hillary Clinton, this is why Democrats should give more serious consideration to Edwards and Obama.

It's Friday . . .

. . . and the streets are ours.

It always struck me as ironic that while "Parents' Television Council" called Buffy the Vampire Slayer the least family-friendly show on TV, it was the show around which my wife and children and I really bonded.  But my kids are growing up now, and with a twinge of regret I think of this:

298 days . . .

. . . until the New Hampshire primary.

Sorry, Fred.  You can't be President.  See, you're not a Christian.  Well, at least you're not a "a committed Christian—someone who talks openly about his faith."  James Dobson says so, and he sits at the right hand of god, so it must be true.

Candidates like Newt Gingrich, who "pour God over everything, like ketchup" despite behaving in the most immoral ways, are A-OK in Dobson's book.  Candidates like Thompson, for whom faith is a personal (not a political) matter, are to be shunned.

I don't think the people are going to fall for that.

Reality

If I could point to a single passage that summed up the multiple failures of the Bush administration, it would be this one:

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.

That comment was made back in October of 2004.  Harold Meyerson thinks that two and a half years later,  reality is still problematic for the GOP:

[T]he alternative reality conveyed by the Republican media -- Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and their ilk -- has created a Republican activist base that is genuinely not reality-based, and from which the current generation of Republican pols is disproportionately drawn.

Perhaps that's why so many of the administration's actions seem frankly puzzling to us progressive types.  A lot of things Bush & Co. have done just don't make sense.  I don't mean I disagree with them politically; I mean they just seem irrational:

Why did Bush ever invade Iraq?

Why was his administration so  inept at handling Hurricane Katrina and wounded soldiers?

Why would the administration out one of its own spies just because her husband wrote something they didn't like?

Why would the Justice Department plan and execute an illegal mass firing of U.S. Attorneys after the Democrats had taken power in Congress, when they themselves knew it would touch off a vigorous inquiry?

These actions are explicable only if we understand that for this administration, reality is what they want it to be.

There's been a lot written recently about how isolated Bush is now.  The truth of the matter is that he and his true believers have been isolated from objective reality for six years--and those realities are now pushing back.

McCain Punk'd

No more "straight" talk from John McCain--instead, he's reversed his position and come out "in full support of gay marriage . . . particularly marriage between passionate females."

Not really.  He's actually reversed his position and come out in favor of the theft of intellectual property.  (h/t to  Crooks and Liars)

299 days . . .

. . . until the New Hampshire primary.

Six years ago, "It's the economy, stupid" was the banner that hung in Bill Clinton's campaign HQ.  It was there to remind the campaign staff and the voters what the central issue of the day was. 

If there is to be a banner in the office of the victorious 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate, I'd suggest that it read, "It's energy, stupid." Energy policy could--and should--be the Unified Field Theory of the 2008 election.  It touches foreign policy, the environment, the economy, tax policy, education policy, trade policy, and just about everything else the government does from running the post office to running the war in Iraq.  In the right hands, energy could be the centerpiece of a highly cogent, successful campaign.

Manufacturing jobs heading south? We can make the domestic non-fossil energy industry bigger than the auto industry.

Balance of trade trending deeper into the red?  The U.S. should be building and exporting solar panels, geothermal generation units, wind farm components, fuel cells, high-capacity batteries, hydrogen transmission and storage equipment, ethanol plants, biodiesel technology, ultra-efficient appliances and homepower rigs.  At the same time, we can reduce what we spend to import oil and natural gas.

Environment in trouble? We can cut our emissions of greenhouse gasses by switching to renewables.

Foreign policy in shambles? Reducing our dependence on energy from unstable, hostile and oppressive governments will allow us to conduct foreign relations in a way more truly consistent with democratic values and American interests.

Losing our edge in education and innovation? A huge investment in math and science education will revitalize U.S. technical education and allow us to regain our lead in these fields.

It was with these thoughts in mind that I was especially interested in Chaoslillith's excellent comparative piece on the Democandidates' energy proposals.  I was not surprised to see that as in other areas, John Edwards has the most detailed and comprehensive plans out there.  Richardson's ideas are also impressive, if not as fleshed out as Edwards's.

My wonky side is attracted to candidates who spell out in specific detail what they intend to do.  I recognize, though, that in laying out policy proposals for health care, taxation and energy in such detail, Edwards is opening himself up to criticism from other candidates who have not offered plans of their own for analysis.  Maybe Edwards should start calling his opponents Hillary "No-Plans" Clinton and Barack "No-Plans" Obama.  He might also draw the analogy to the occupation of Iraq: see what happens when we elect a President who has some vague, general ideas about what he wants to do but no carefully thought-out plans for how he's going to do them?